Nice is Nice and Monte Carlo is proof that some people have way too much money and time on their hands

Hello all, Greetings from Nice, France, a beautiful town in France. Our idea of Nice was that it would be this nice sleepy little town on the French Riviera with a few quaint restaurants and some souvenir shops. Uh wrong. By a long shot. This is a town with a beautiful history, new area and fascinating Old Town area with miles of winding little streets full of shops, gelaterias, restaurants, and bars. We lucked out booking our hotel, le meurice as it right in the pedestrian section of town full of people packing the restaurants and bars until wee hours of the morning; how do these people get up in the morning?

Some of the feedback from Trip advisor complain of the noise but it is full of life, we left our windows open to take it all in after we retired to our room for the night. Got up this morning late and decided to take the bus from Nice to Monte Carlo, Monaco, set us back a whopping 1 euro for the trip. They should be charging 20 euros for the view along our route, it is the most amazing view We have ever seen of a coastline. Jumped off the 100 bus and found the hop hop off tour around the city to get a back story on the town. Jumped off at the Palace. The view of the marina with all the million or should I say multi million dollar yachts, boats and ships was a sight to see. After that, we walked over to the Casino Monte Carlo to try our hand at baccarat, roulette, and how you say, Le Braque jaac. Again, after reading articles in trip advisor about the rudeness of the people working in the casino, we were pleasantly surprised to find that everyone was very friendly and more happy to explain the history of this unique building. Truth be told, we walked around the casino and dropped some money in the slots and were out of there. I did see one gentleman that was playing 50, 100 euro chips at a time,and losing the entire time we were there. The best part for us was grabbing a chair at the adjacent cafe and just hanging out watching the maserati's, Aston Martins, and Bentleys arriving and departing. Oh yeah, there were also several of those lower end cars, Mercedes there too, they didn't even get a spot in the front.

                                             View of the Grand Casino in Monte Carlo.

After spending the day in Monte Carlo we headed back to Nice and decided to hike to the top of Castle Hill, the highest spot in Nice. Put over 10,000 steps on the pedometer today and a big part was this hike. Went up ancient staircases built in the 1400's to finally arrive at the pinnacle of the castle. We were treated to a 360 degree view of Nice, the mountains, and of course the azure colored waters of the French Riviera, cote d azur. It's starting to get dark and we haven't seen a soul the entire time we have been on this hike. We hotfoot it down the mountain onto the road into old town and hear someone using a whistle,must be a criminal about somewhere,,uh no, it's the guard for the castle whistling that the park is closed and why are we there, and he was not haaaappy that we are preventing him from his dinner.

                                                         View from Castle Hill of Nice

                                                         Waving to all of my "subjects"
 

                                                        Inside of Church in Monte Carlo

                                                 
                                         Terri Smoozing with Doorman at Casino Monte Carlo

                                         Some of the cars parked in front of the Grand Casino

 We walked down into old town and found a French provincial restaurant to have dinner at. It was the best meal we have EVer had in our lives.

This quaint little restaurant with a few outside tables and some inside seating along with one table in an alcove at the front of the restaurant that Spoke to Terri. Glass of wine, French onion soup, the lady had pork medallions with a grain mustard reduction sauce and the man, a wonderfully tender Filet Mignonette with foix GRAS (not the pâté but the whole liver on top with a reduction sauce, ci magnifique!

This has been such a wonderful stay that we are extending our stay one extra day so that we can see the stone city of eze and the summer residence of the garibaldis in Antibes. They have museums of Picasso and Matiss that we would like to see before we head up into the Italian Alps. I promised to share pictures with everyone, however Apparently Blogspot hasn't figured out to upload pictures from an IPod. If I get an answer on how to do it, I will share our pictures, until then, ciao!